A simple suggestion to add depth to the late game.

[Flavorable]

This is an extension of one of the suggestions I made in my feedback thread.

I really love the economy in Pandora, I think it's head and shoulders above the Civ series in terms of depth and dynamism, and I'm saying that as a longtime vet of that series.In no other 4X game do I find myself constantly refitting the terrain and output of my cities in order to adapt to my changing needs. I love the constant juggling act between pollution, resource output and production going on throughout my empire.

That being said, this completely falls apart in the late game. Once the last Fungi tech is researched the game quickly devolves into a tedious chore of thoughtlessly replacing all of the terrain (except roads) with Fungi. It isn't just that it's mindless and frustrating though, it permanently kills the strategic threat posed by pollution and renders the advanced pollution control tech completely useless.

It isn't fun, it isn't strategic, and it damages the balance of the game.

I think the solution is to simply reverse the pollution yield of Fungi. Instead of it taking -1 pollution, it would give +1 pollution to nearby cities.

At the moment, fungi spam is mindless in that it is ALWAYS the best option. If Fungi pollution were to become a concern, it would add a n interesting layer of depth to late-game economic management. Players would struggle to find ways to reduce pollution so that they can reap the benefits of fungi resources. powerful cities would develop advanced expensive pollution controls while outposts would have to rely on a mixture of fungi and forest. Pollution would become a vital strategic element of late-game rather then the forgotten afterthought that it currently becomes in the final stages of the game.

The lore justification is that fungi acts as an essential part of the ecosystem that recycles the oxygen created by trees and the carbon from fungal decomposition into concentrated fumes of toxic Carbon Monoxide. This would also help to explain why the Fungi is so deadly to humans.

[DewyB]

I also agree with the Fungi being +1 pollution. It's TOXIC! It takes 3-5 years in game of even being able to REMOVE the stuff safely.

Maybe one of the later advances reduces that to a neutral pollution factor, still leaving the player to balance the benefits of fungi vs pollution control.